Australian Open '09 Bracket Challenge

Are you ready for the first major of the season? Come make your picks in our second annual Aussie Open Bracket Challenge. Pick the most winners in the men's draw and show everyone who's boss.

UPDATE: The bracket is closed! Good luck! If you missed this contest, don't worry - come back for the French Open challenge.

BritishTennis.net runs a "Battle Of The Boards" in which about 15 different tennis websites compete against one another. We (Tennisopolis) blew the other sites away last time with the most participants and several players toward the top of the leader board. "Over 800 people from 64 countries have taken part in these contests so far!" So, come support Tennisopolis and have fun following the matches for the next two weeks. Make your picks on this page at BT.

Mark - good to see that Tennisopolis will be taking part again. I like your ao pick 'em banner - any chance you've got a bigger version that I could put at the top of the BT competitions page while this comp is on?

If so, could you email the file as big as you've got to btpickem@hotmail.com

No problem. I just emailed you the largest file we have.
Thanks for doing such a great job running the Battle.
Good luck you - you'll need it!
M

Steven said:

Mark - good to see that Tennisopolis will be taking part again. I like your ao pick 'em banner - any chance you've got a bigger version that I could put at the top of the BT competitions page while this comp is on?

If so, could you email the file as big as you've got to btpickem@hotmail.com

Go to the BT link Mark provided above. tomorrow there will be a link to a page where you'll fill out your email address and name and stuff. be sure to select Tennisopolis.com as your team in the drop-down menu! then just start filling out your bracket one by one. you dont have to do it all at once, but you cant complete it or make any changes once the tournament has started. you can fill out more than one bracket too, but sign into BT with a different email address for the subsequent ones. (i found that one out the hard way!)

You just pick the winnners, but ALL of them before a single match is played. So if you chose Murray to win it all and he chokes in the first round - tuff luck. (Not that Andy is going to let you down like that!)
M

The main draw starts at midnight UK time on Sunday night, so entries will close on Sunday at 23.59 GMT, which is 6.59 PM US Eastern, 11.00 Monday Melbourne time and 00.59 Monday CET. However, if you were not in the top 250 of the year-end overall pick 'em rankings, they may close earlier - please see (*) below.

There is plenty of time to enter and not much free time on Monday to sort out the results, so no late entries will be accepted under any circumstances.

WINNER PICKS

Before you pick your favourite player to win the title, it might be worth bearing in mind that the time you could most need this competition to keep your interest in the tournament going is if things don't go to plan and your favourite goes out early. Hence there's no need to feel disloyal if you don't pick them to win! Of course, having thought about this, you're then welcome to pick them to win anyway if you think they will!

MATCHES INVOLVING QUALIFIERS

Qualifying is due to finish on Saturday. If it does, the entry form with qualifiers placed will be available sometime on Saturday afternoon. You are of course welcome to enter before that and pick for matches involving qualifiers without knowing who they are if you want to.

(*) ENTRY LIMIT

We will cap the number of entrants at 500 if more than 500 people enter, with the top 250 in the overall pick 'em rankings getting automatic entry as long as they enter before the deadline and the remaining places going to those outside the top 250 and newbies on a first come first served basis. Automatic entry for top 250 players only applies if you enter with exactly the same name as is shown on the overall rankings at http://www.britishtennis.net/pickem/ranking.htm?n=1 so please be careful!

I doubt we'll go over 500 this time but just in case we do get close to 500, a link on the competitions page gives more info about the reasons why we impose the 500 limit and exactly how it will work.

EMAIL REMINDERS

Email reminders to those who asked for them will be going out sometime on Friday, or on Saturday afternoon to those who asked to be reminded only when qualifiers have been placed.

GOOD LUCK! (this is going to be a tough one to pick, so you'll probably need it ...)